ANCS Values Not Populating -- LightBlue Bean

[wchang]

Uploaded ANCS Sketch. Received inputs on bean console.

With SMS & Calls:
Cat is always received as 0
Length is always received as 0
Flag is always received as 0
Count is always received as 0

[karel]

@wchang

I will check this out sometime this week and get back to you. Thanks for letting us know!

Karel

[colin]

Hey @wchang have you cleared your notifications recently? I noticed that if I had tons of recent notifications, the Bean+ will try to send them all over at once and can get stuck.

Can you also post the Arduino code you're using for this? Thanks.

[wchang]

https://punchthrough.com/bean/guides/features/ancs/

The Arduino sketch is from the guide above, clearing notifications did not solve the problem.

[karel]

@wchang

Thanks for providing that. I have seen what you mentioned...

But, but am not currently able to reproduce the issue. But, I restarted the Bean and re-paired it with the iPhone and was able to get it working correctly again.

I am not sure what could be causing it to suddenly mis-parse the ANCS notifications or exactly where that issue might lie, but do let us know if you get it working or are still able to reproduce the issue.

[wchang]

Update: Using Bean+ and same ANCS sketch.

Am occasionally able to get notifications for application updates. However, SMS and incoming calls are always showing up with Cat:0 and Length:0

Are you able to show a notification with SMS or phone call correctly being received? -- I have not been able to successfully receive one.

[danlsk]

I am using Bean and IOS Bean Loader. Tested the Bean to be working fine for uploading Blink Sketch. Then I tried out the ANCS code here: https://punchthrough.com/bean/guides/features/ancs/ .
I can see the pairing request after uploading the sketch. However, I can never see the LED blink when there is incoming call. I tried many power cycles, removing battery, unpair and pair again. It didn't work.
I tried removing the accelerometer detection.
while (!Bean.checkMotionEvent(HIGH_G_EVENT)) {
incomingCall();
}
to just
incomingCall();

When I power cycle, LED appear red, then R-G-B and off without any incoming calls. Then I tried incoming call again, it doesn't response at all.

I am not able to use the bean console to capture anything. Just
* SCRATCH BANK 1: *
* SCRATCH BANK 2: *
* SCRATCH BANK 3: *
* SCRATCH BANK 4: *
* SCRATCH BANK 5: *

[danlsk]

I've finally gotten it to work. Yet, I cannot root cause the real issue that is preventing it to work. I am very very concerned that somehow the platform is not very stable.

I did modify the code and recompiling many times. There are times that IOS bootloader cannot detect the bean and I have to power cycle it.

I am not sure what does start/stop sketch really means.
Once the sketch is uploaded, the code runs immediately asking for pairing. The way I disconnect the bootloader is swiping the IOS bootloader off.

Please report if anyone is seeing difficulty to work right away.

[scarrot]

I am very very concerned that somehow the platform is not very stable.

I did modify the code and recompiling many times. There are times that IOS bootloader cannot detect the bean and I have to power cycle it.

I've put a fair bit of effort into ANCS on LightBlue Bean and have also found:

• ANCS notifications with out any content
• requirement to reboot bean and/or turn bluetooth on/off on iPhone to 'make things work' again

Separately I encountered a number of issues installing the CLI tools on MacOS -- predominantly around permissions.

So I also have concerns that 'the platform' is not yet stable, which surprised me given the number of Bean and Bean+ devices that have purportedly been sold.

On the bright side, The iOS LightBlue Explorer and the MacOS Been Loader are first class pieces of software, and it seems that the PunchThrough developers are genuinely keen to fix outstanding issues. I wish them well — it's a big and complex stack of software that they must maintain across many platforms.

[scarrot]

I'm also concerned that the ANCS API is a bit light on.

There's a whole attribute discovery algorithm supported by Apple that's important for many use cases, but is not yet exposed in the BeanAncs.

To be more specific:

1. Although BeanAncs includes getNotificationAttributes, it looks like you can only receive one attribute at a time, whereas Apple's CommandIDGetNotificationAttributes command permits fetching of multiple attributes at once -- much faster / more efficient.

2. It looks to me that to implement full ANCS support you need to be able to determine which attributes are available using Apple's CommandIDGetAppAttributes. I can't see any support for attribute discovery in BeanAncs.

Knowing the Arduino community, I bet this code has already been written for other BLE Arduino implementations and has been open sourced.

So, PTD, can you share any thoughts on where your ANCS implementation is going?

(Pinging @karel because I see you've been active on this thread.)

[scarrot]

Ping @karel @PunchThrough -- can you please look into my question above?

I'm sure many would also appreciate an update on your roadmap (if any) for the ANCS APIs.

[PunchThrough]

@scarrot

We'll consider this feature request for the ANCS. Sounds like a good idea -- Thanks for the suggestion!

[wuilbert]

I too get cat. = 0. This occurs only if there are more than 9 unread sms or calls when I startup the Bean+. I only check for sms and calls. If I have less then it works well. I solved this by having the Bean+ acknowledge receipt of the notification. I use:

Bean.notificationAction

This has the added benefit of the iPhone not sending the same notifications a second time, in case of disconnect.